Nearfest Exits, Farfest Enters

If you missed out on tickets forNearfest Apocalypse, the final edition of this venerable festival, then hang on until October for Farfest, a four day progressive rock festival happening in Wilmington, Delaware at the Grand Opera House October 4-7. The festival has put together an impressive array of 70’s Progressive rock acts, all from Europe. They aren’t the big names, but the ones cherished by Prog cognoscenti. Among them are Pulsar, a mellotron centric band that put out three classic space-prog albums, Pollen, Strands of the Future and Halloween; Shylock, which only released a couple of great albums of their dynamic, symphonic prog; Maxophone, a pretty obscure Italian band that only had one album released in the US,; Poland’s SBB ; and Atoll from France. Nods to post-70s prog go to Sweden’s Anekdoten and Norway’s Wobbler. Wobbler played a dynamic set at Nearfest a few years ago.

Here’s the complete list to date:

Alphataurus

Anekdoten

Atoll

Cressida

Latte E Miele

Locanda Delle Fate

Maxophone

Pulsar

SBB

Shylock

Wobbler

This is a welcome festival in a more centrally located city than Bethlehem. And the Grand Old Opera House is an intimate 1200 seat venue.